What Does 1 Corinthians 2:7 Mean?
But we speak the wisdom of God in a sealed thing, even the hidden wisdom, which God marked out before the ages to clothe us in weight.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory:THE KEY
What is hidden from your sight is not absent or improvised; God’s wisdom was marked out before the ages with your glory as its destination.
THE MEANING
God’s wisdom meets you as a mystery: real, present, and not yet fully visible. Its hiddenness does not mean it is absent; it is marked out before the ages and directed toward your glory, the weight and honor you share in it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that if you cannot yet see what God has prepared, nothing has been prepared for you.
THE ROOT
ἀποκεκρυμμένην
apokekrymmenēn
GROWS FROM
κρυπ-
krypt-
To conceal or keep out of sight.
The Greek word for hidden wisdom belongs to the same word family as words for what is concealed or kept secret. The verse holds concealment and purpose together: what you cannot yet see has already been marked out toward glory.
ALSO GROWS
kryptos: Hidden, concealed.
κρυπτός
It shows that hiddenness describes something out of sight, not something nonexistent.
apokryphos: Hidden, secret.
ἀπόκρυφος
This branch echoes the verse’s mystery: God’s wisdom is concealed, yet it remains God’s wisdom.
προώρισεν
proōrisen
GROWS FROM
ὁριζ-
horiz-
To mark out, set a boundary, or determine; προ- (pro-) adds the sense of beforehand.
The verse describes this wisdom as marked out before the ages, with glory as its direction. Its destination is already within the scope of what God has determined.
ALSO GROWS
horizō: To mark out, determine, set bounds.
ὁρίζω
It reveals the sense of a purpose given shape and direction.
aphorizō: To set apart, mark off.
ἀφορίζω
The shared base keeps the image of something deliberately distinguished or bounded.
δόξαν
doxan
GROWS FROM
δοκ-
dok-
To think, seem, or regard.
The verse names glory as the destination of this hidden wisdom. Here glory carries the sense of weight and honor, the substantial share toward which the wisdom is directed.
ALSO GROWS
dokeō: To think, seem, or regard.
δοκέω
Its sense of regard helps show how this word family touches esteem and honor.
endoxos: Honored, glorious, held in esteem.
ἔνδοξος
It keeps glory connected with recognized honor and weight.
THE PATTERN
What God marks out before the ages can remain hidden through them and still arrive at its appointed unveiling.
From the ages I am poured out, from the first, from the beginnings of the earth.Now to the one who can set you firm according to my good news and the heralding of Jesus, the anointed one, according to the unveiling of the mystery, which was hushed through the ages.Who indeed was known beforehand before the foundation of the world, but was made visible in these last times for you,THE THREAD
The mystery that has been hidden away from the ages and from the generations, but now has been made visible to his set-apart ones.The word translated “hid” belongs to the same Greek root family as “hidden” in this verse. Colossians shows the movement from concealment across the ages to manifestation, opening the verse’s hidden wisdom toward its intended end.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us